A typical liquid crystal display cell includes a liquid crystal sealed between two substrates. A plurality of spacers may be disposed between the substrates to maintain a constant distance between the substrates. When assembled, the internal pressure of the device may be lowered to below atmospheric such that the substrates are forced in contact with the spacers. In such an application, the substrates are relatively rigid in order to prevent the substrates from bending in the expanses between the spacers. The combination of the negative pressure and the rigidity of the glass substrates causes the distance between the substrates to be maintained even when external forces such as pinching and bending act on the display device.
In addition to the spacers, it is often desirable to provide cell walls between the substrates. A cell wall generally refers to any structure extending between substrates of the cell. The walls may be used for maintaining a constant distance between the substrates or for segregating the cell into different areas. When used to segregate, the walls prevent liquid crystal flow between selected areas of a cell. Cell walls may also be useful for preventing expansion caused by gas bubbles that diffuse through the substrate or from the liquid crystal itself.
Known processes for forming cell walls in a liquid crystal display often include undesirable steps. For instance, when the masking method is used to form the walls, the mask must be perfectly formed and perfectly aligned so that the cell walls are properly formed. These steps require precision and are time consuming. Further, perfect alignment is especially problematic when one desires to form a cell wall around each individual pixel in a liquid crystal display. The masking method is also difficult to employ with thick substrates due to the bending of light that occurs through the thick substrate. It is thus desirable to provide a method for forming walls in a liquid crystal display cell that results in accurately formed walls. It is highly desirable that the method of forming the walls does not require the step of individually selecting the walls to be formed and individually segregating the walls.